Paint rollers are widely used for painting surfaces. They are usually covered with a nap material which picks up and deposits the paint upon the surface to be painted.
Cleaning the cover for the paint roller applicator is a time-consuming and messy process. Thus, many attempts have been made to provide devices which will facilitate this cleaning.
In 1978, in his U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,484, Monteiro disclosed a device in which the entire roller with the applicator mounted thereon was inserted into a cylindrical body having an inside diameter of a size adapted to snugly and slideably receive the paint roller therein with a hook on the open end to hold the roller therein once it had been inserted A liquid under pressure was admitted from the opposite end of insertion so that the liquid was forced through the nap of the cover mounted on the roller. As was noted in subsequent U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,127 (see column 1), the problem with Monteiro's approach "...is that the paint roller itself may not properly plug the ends of the cover applicators so that all of the liquid is not forced around the outer periphery of the cover. In addition, the discharge from the open end is only restricted by the complete open end of the cleaning cylinder and portions of the handle are in the way resulting in a very messy process with the polluted discharge water carrying the paint simply spews out of the complete open end of the cleaning cylinder."
In 1978, yet another attempt was made to provide a suitable paint roller cleaner. In his U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,230, Morgan D. Lacher, Jr. disclosed a device in which the cylindrical roller cover applicator of absorbent material fit snugly in a cylindrical casing with one end of the cylindrical roller cover applicator being plugged before the applicator which had been removed from its roller was inserted into the cylindrical casing; the other end of the applicator, as well as the cylindrical casing in which the applicator had been inserted, was closed with discharge openings communicating with the interior of the casing adjacent the inner periphery thereof. As was noted in subsequent U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,127 (see columns 1-2), the problem with Lacher, Jr.'s approach is that "...the end cap has a plurality of openings on the outer periphery thereof which receive the polluted water which is discharged around the entire end cap making for a difficult and messy discharge of polluted water. Then too, if any of the openings become clogged, the cleaning process is deterred. In addition, the end cap is required to plug one end of the paint applicator and to sod so it must be flush against the open end of the paint cover applicator or the pressure from the discharge water will enter the inside of the paint roller cover applicator weakening or destroying its tubular lining and/or depositing water containing paint on the interior of the tube which prevents a thorough cleaning job."
The disclosure of U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,126,484 and 4,155,230 are hereby incorporated by reference into this specification. In November of 1989, when the patent application from which U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,127 issued was filed, the prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,126,484 and 4,155,230 represented the state of the paint roller applicator cover cleaning art.
In his U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,127, George P. Kostsopoulos described a device which he alleged solved all of the problems of the prior art device. The device of this patent is a cylindrical paint roller cover applicator having a hollow body member supporting a paint-absorbing layer. This body member is plugged and inserted in the cleaning apparatus, which comprises a cylindrical sleeve having an inside diameter slightly smaller than the outside diameter of the applicator. A first end cap having a central opening therein is frictionally mounted on one end of the sleeve and has a central opening adapted to couple a water supply thereto. A coupler is frictionally mounted on the other end of the cylindrical sleeve which contains a bayonet socket which is adapted to removably house a second end cap having a plurality of bayonet studs equally spaced around the periphery which may be removably inserted and locked in the bayonet socket of the coupling. The second end cap has a central opening to which a discharge hose is connected.
However, the device disclosed in the Kostopoulos patent still presented some major problems. In the first place, when the cleaning apparatus of Kostopoulous is placed in a vertical position, it will not effectively clean the paint roller cover in a reasonable period of time. In the second place, the cleaning apparatus of Kostopoulous, even when placed in a vertical position, will not effectively clean the bottom of the paint roller cover. In the third place, the cleaning apparatus of Kostopoulous required the user to plug the ends of the roller before inserting it into the tube of his device. In the fourth place, the cleaning apparatus of Kostopoulous is not adapted to clean the cover of a paint power roller.
It is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus for cleaning a cover of a paint roller which may be effectively used in any position.
It is another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for cleaning a cover of a paint roller which does not require that a user plug the ends of the roller before inserting it into the tube of the apparatus.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide a a paint roller applicator cover cleaner which will effectively clean the cover of a power roller.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide all of the advantages of the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,957,127 with none of the attendant disadvantages.